What If Dean Had Asthma?
by Unhobbity Hobbit
Summary: Life has a very fine balance, change one thing and it could all go to hell, so what if Dean had asthma? The story is possibly not what the title would lead you to expect. Character deaths.
1. The Funeral

What If... Dean Had Asthma?

Sam stood and stared at his feet. New shoes stared back at him, black like the day should have been. The bright sun was mocking him, the light, fluffy clouds were laughing cruelly. A tear ran down Sam's nose and dripped onto his spotless shoe. Someone was talking somewhere, and he was supposed to be listening, the words were supposed to mean something to him but he couldn't bring himself to hear them, in case they made everything even more real.

He looked up only once during the whole service, to watch the burnt and boxed remains of his father be placed ceremoniously into a hole in the ground. He could have laughed. He had during Dean's burial two days previously. He'd watched the box being slowly lowered in to the ground and all he could hear was Dean saying, "Dude, get on with it." He hadn't been told off, hadn't even been shushed. The few people who did glance up had pity in their eyes and that just reminded Sam how wrong everything was. His laughter had died on his lips.

Someone was directing Sam now, pointing him towards a mound of soil. Sam picked up a handful of it and stared at it. His mouth was dry, his eyes were red, he could barely swallow down the sobs that were bubbling up inside him and here he was with a handful of dirt, as though it meant something. He threw the dirt into the hole. It landed on the box and obscured the shiny metal plaque that cheerfully proclaimed the contents to be John Winchester. If he were alive he'd be telling Sam off so badly for throwing a handful of dirt at him. Weird that this was meant to be respectful.

Sam hated that he had to think of his family in terms of 'if they were alive'.

He took the handkerchief that was pressed into his hand by an unknown person, he couldn't identify them by their shoes. He stared at it, he'd been doing a lot of staring recently, ever since he'd seen Dean's hand still clenched tight around the gun. The bright white of the tissue had been marred by the soil Sam still had on his hands, marred like his father had been when... Sam blew his nose. He pushed the tissue into his pocket where it joined two others that were in much the same soggy state.

Sam realised that the talking had stopped and there was just the quiet mumblings of people moving off, going about their business. Sam wished he'd been listening to what had been said, maybe it would have given him an idea what he was supposed to do now. Pastor Jim knelt down in front of him, forcing him to look at his face. To Sam's relief there was no smile there and Pastor Jim wasn't expecting a smile back, he had an expression that was part concern and part 'it hurts, doesn't it?'. Sam dropped his gaze back to his shoes and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Pastor Jim stood up and took Sam's hand. He began leading Sam away, away from the last of his family, but they were gone anyway, so Sam didn't care, he didn't care where they were going, he didn't care what was happening. All he knew was that Pastor Jim wasn't going to lead him to a room where he'd find his dad and brother sitting alive, unscathed and completely bewildered by the fuss Sam was making like he did in Sam's dreams. Those dreams that made him wish that he never woke up.

Sam climbed into the passenger seat of the car he'd been lead to. It was the Impala. It was black, black was a good colour to be. In mourning until the wear and tear of years eventually reduced the car to a shell of its former self, fit only for burial. Just like Sam.

Sam had been disappointed by how much the Impala hadn't comforted him when he'd first returned back to it and the motel they'd been staying in. He'd expected to find some part of Dean or his dad there. They'd each spent so many hours of their lives in it, looking after it that Sam had thought perhaps there'd be some kind of imprint of them here, something he could hang on to, maybe something more than memories and dreams. Perhaps that had been too much to expect from a car.

It had still taken a number of hours for anyone to persuade him to leave the Impala. Even more time had been spent cajoling him into eating something. They'd let him keep the jacket he'd found on his father's bed and had taken everywhere with him since. It was this Sam reached for as Pastor Jim started the engine. He pulled it from the back seat and buried his face into it. It smelt of his brother and of his father, of home and everything he'd ever known. He was careful not to let his tears fall on it. Still clutching it to his chest with one arm, he loosened his tie with his free hand.

The smart clothes had been someone else's idea, Sam forgets who, or maybe he never knew. The past week had been such a blur of soul-shattering grief and a fragile state of manic happiness, switching between the two without warning, or just sitting, everything about him blank. He hadn't paid much attention to anything. He hadn't had to, other people had happily done everything for him, made everything as easy as possible, which still hadn't been that easy. "That's a bad habit to get into," his fathers voice warned him. Sam just stared out of the window at the trees flying past.

He rested his forehead on the window. It was a small thing to do but it still made him clutch all the more tightly, desperately at the jacket. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for something to be said, for someone to tell him to stop making the window all greasy, for someone to threaten him with washing the car at the next stop. It was a futile wait because he was really waiting for it to be his dad and Dean riding in the car with him. The last time they'd all been in the car together had been on the way back from the crematorium, but it just hadn't been the same when his dad and Dean were just piles of ashes, though Sam had kept glancing back at the boxes as though they were going to do something other than just sit there.

Pastor Jim parked the car in front of a house Sam had never seen before. Sam slowly got out, pulling the jacket out behind him and stood and stared. There were people here, they'd all been at the service. Some of them he knew, most of them he didn't. Pastor Jim took his hand once more and lead him in through the front door to a living room where there were snacks and plates of food adorning every surface and people milling about talking, laughing. Dean would have enjoyed this so much more than he was now.

Pastor Jim pointed him towards a chair and he perched on the edge of it. The chair was made to be comfortable and Sam was anything but. He was back to staring at his shoes. Someone sat down next to him. Sam glanced from his shoes to theirs and was surprised to find that the person was a woman, or wearing a dress anyway. Dean had once told him that the two didn't always necessarily go together.

"Would you like something to eat?" she said gently, placing a hand on his arm. Sam looked at the hand for a while, he hadn't looked up to her face yet but she had a calming presence. She gave Sam all the time he needed. Sam finally nodded, saying no made people talk to you more. The woman was gone and back in less than a minute, bearing a plate with a bit of everything on it. Sam took it and poked the food around a bit, trying to decide what seemed the most appetising and what was least likely to come back up. "Hey, you gonna eat that?" he heard Dean say. He finally broke off part of a bread stick and ate it. It stuck horribly to his mouth and seemed to dry out, becoming hard and scratchy, with a huge effort Sam gulped it down. "Perhaps you'd prefer a drink?" Sam nodded without hesitation this time.

When the woman returned with a glass of water, Sam took it and drank the whole of it without pause. The woman then handed him a second glass, as though she'd known how thirsty he was, even when he hadn't. Sam looked up at her face to thank her but paused when he saw the look of pure understanding on her face. He stared.

"I know, child, I know," she said, patting his knee. She then left him with his plate of food resting on his lap and his glass of water in his hand, jacket tucked behind him where no one else could touch it. For all that she was a calming presence, Sam was relieved to see her go. He always had the feeling that other people expected something of him, that they thought talking to him would make him feel better and that they were disappointed when it didn't. He wasn't much of a talker right now, anyway.

He sat and sipped his water for a while. He eventually gave up on the food and put the plate on the floor and then sat back in the chair, once again hugging the jacket to himself. He knew what he must look like, he knew that it was easy to guess who he was, even for the people who'd never seen him before. He was grateful to every single person in that building for not talking to him, not looking at him, not loudly broadcasting their thoughts of 'oh you poor boy, it must be terrible for you!' like the policewoman had. The one who'd thought he shouldn't be allowed to see his father and brother, that he wouldn't be able to handle it. The one he'd kicked pretty damn hard when she wouldn't let him go. The one he'd collapsed back into when he'd found out that she was right.

Sam got up and went to Pastor Jim, taking the jacket with him. Pastor Jim turned to him immediately, cutting off the conversation in the middle of a sentence, but the person he was talking to didn't seem to mind at all.

"Bathroom," said Sam.

"Upstairs, first door on your left," replied Pastor Jim. Sam nodded and followed his instructions and found himself in a white, pristine bathroom. One bath, one shower, one toilet, one sink, infinitely better than any motel bathroom. Sam felt out of place.

He locked the door behind him and carefully folded up the jacket, bowing his head into it one last time before he set it reverently on the toilet cistern. He lowered the lid and then backed up until his back was against the door. He stared at the jacket. "You can't stay like this forever," he heard his dad say.

Sam's face crumpled, he tried desperately to stop it, he wanted to look at the jacket, but the tears came fast and soon blurred out his vision. The shell of blankness that had formed within Sam was quickly cracking and falling apart, giving way to the gaping abyss he felt inside. He slid down the door and huddled into a ball, eyes still on the jacket. Tears ran freely and unnoticed down his cheeks as he let himself remember what had happened. His sobs were no longer silent but loud and they caught in his throat and soon he was screaming his discontent out to the world. He had no mind for the people downstairs who had all stopped talking to listen, only for himself and for that night.

His fingernails were digging into his arms, but he paid no attention to them. It hadn't meant to be a hard hunt. Dean wasn't even meant to get involved, just to watch, to learn. Two hours at the most, that was what his dad had said.

They'd been so much longer than two hours.

By three in the morning, Sam had worked himself into a frenzy. Hunts went on longer than expected sometimes, but not this long, not when they'd left Sam alone at the motel. Pastor Jim had been the first person he'd phoned. He'd promised that he'd get there as quickly as possible, but what if that wasn't quick enough?

Sam had called the police, because that was what they said to do at school. Dad had always said that the cops couldn't do anything, but what if they could this time? Sam had called them. He'd waited tearfully in the doorway of the room for them to come. He'd refused to tell them where to go unless they took him as well.

They'd sped to Burrow's Grove where dad had said they were going. Then the search had begun. Sam calling, screaming into the night because if they were there and they were fine, they would have shown themselves by now. A shout had come from a dense bush and Sam's heart had leapt, but no, it had been a police officer. He'd found something and it wasn't something good.

As soon as the nature of the discovery had been revealed, one woman had made it her life's mission to stop Sam from seeing it. Sam had fought and escaped, he was trained for this sort of thing. Training doesn't prepare you for everything, though.

His dad was lying at his feet, what was left of his dad. He could only tell it was John Winchester by the clothes he was wearing. And then, a little farther off, was Dean, stretched out, clutching the gun like it was a lifeline, completely untouched, completely unmoving. Sam couldn't move, could only stare.

The policewoman had taken him away again and held him while he screamed, cried, vomited and finally just fallen limp. The bodies, because that's what they were now, had been taken away to the morgue to have cause of death determined. John's was obvious, you only needed to see the body.

Dean's result came a little later. He'd died of an asthma attack. Panic-induced they said. That couldn't be right, Dean didn't panic. His asthma wasn't fatal. He'd faced all kinds of demons and spirits before and all he'd ever needed was one puff of his inhaler after any particularly hard fight and he'd be right as rain!

It wasn't right.

It wasn't fair.

Sam screamed.

TBC


	2. Back to School

What if Dean Had Asthma?

Chapter 2: Back to School

Sammy was packing his bag for school. School had started a week ago but tomorrow was going to be his first day there. The last week had been full of adults asking him questions, asking Pastor Jim questions. Questions about how he felt, what his life was like, what he wanted to do when he grew up, if he felt any better, if he was going to talk to them next time, if he could please stop screaming, if he could stop punching anyone who came too close. These questions were followed by a lot of hmm-ing and ha-ing on the part of the adults, before they decided that he would stay at Pastor Jim's until he became more 'emotionally stable'.

Sammy just wanted to go back to school. He didn't have to think about Dad and Dean there, didn't have to scream to block out his mind because they gave him things to do.

He packed his books away neatly, then looked through them to make sure he had them all. He opened his pencil case, to make sure everything was there and packed it away too. He looked over at his bed. There was the jacket laid out perfectly. He'd spent half an hour getting it to lie just right with no creases or lumps. He looked back to the bag. If he left it, it would be the first time in two weeks he'd left it behind, but if he took it with him then it could get dirty, other people might touch it and Dad and Dean would rub off on them. Sammy wanted Dad and Dean for himself. He reached out and stroked a sleeve before turning back to his bag and checking it through again.

"You gonna stop being a geek and come watch TV?" Sam looked up at the open doorway he wished he'd just heard that voice through. He zipped up his bag and took his brother's suggestion, just like he never had when his brother was alive.

"Don't forget to pack a knife, Sammy," he was reminded when he was halfway down the stairs, but he hadn't forgotten. He would have said so if it didn't mean he would be talking to himself.

He sat in front of the TV and vaguely watched the colours as they flashed on the screen. He liked TV, it was one of the few times his mind would go completely blank. Blank was a good way for his mind to be. Even when it was completely occupied with something else there'd be a small voice underneath it all chanting, "They're dead, you're alone, they're dead, you're alone," on and on and on.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Time for bed," Pastor Jim said kindly and he ushered him upstairs to get changed and brush his teeth and all things like that. Sammy like this mindless routine, it was nice to do something normal. He glanced at his bed, the jacket still laying on it, it was the part that came next that he hated. "You tell me if you need anything," Pastor Jim assured him as he left the room. Sam picked the jacket up and clutched it, staring at the bed as though it would eat him if he climbed into it. It had never been like this before. Never. There was always another bed for him. He was being forced into one bed, his bed, the only bed. He looked away.

He didn't want his bed, he wanted Dean's bed with Dean's warmth and Dean's solid weight and Dean's gentle teasing, but Dean didn't have any of those things now. Sam cried, because it meant that he didn't have any of those things either.

He stood where he was, staring at the wall. He used to run to his dad when he had a nightmare that even Dean couldn't scare away. His dad was strong and fierce and could fight off anything that came for them. But that wasn't true. Sam wanted his dad so badly because nothing could get this nightmare to go away, not even waking up.

It took another hour before Sammy was too tired to stay standing and it was then that he climbed into his hateful bed, just like he always did. He curled up beneath the bedclothes, still holding the jacket tightly, and let his eyelids drift close.

He slept peacefully, which was a relief because he needed a good night's sleep after all the awful ones he'd been having. Usually, his mind found a multitude of ways to fill in the gap between when Dad and Dean left the motel and when Sam found them. Those were the worst nights of his life. Filled with his brother's wide-eyed gasping, clutching at the gun even though it was his own body killing him, stretching out to give his lungs room before his throat closed on him completely. Then there'd be the soundless gaping like a fish on land before it all just stopped.

The less said about what his mind could come up with about his dad's death the better.

The next morning he woke up feeling almost excited. His gaze darted to the schoolbag on the bedroom floor and his mouth almost, so very nearly, rose into a smile. He scrambled out of bed and glanced at the clock, 5:30am, plenty of time to get ready. He started the day with his usual ritual of making the bed and laying the jacket flat out on it. He was leaving it behind today but he wasn't neglecting it. He spent a full three quarters of an hour doing this, mostly because he had a change of heart and went to pack it into his schoolbag before he remembered why he wasn't taking it. Once that was done he made his way downstairs for breakfast.

Pastor Jim didn't have fun cereals like Lucky Charms so Sammy poured himself a bowl of cornflakes. He greeted Pastor Jim with a relatively cheerful 'good morning' and they ate breakfast together in silence. It was the least tense and most carefree silence they'd experienced for weeks.

Sammy took his time getting changed, he wanted to remember this day as it was going to be possibly the most normal day for a long while. The only thing was that it was going to be Pastor Jim walking to school with him and that hurt slightly, but he was able to put it to one side. He was still ready with plenty of time to spare and waited for Pastor Jim by the front door.

"Wait!" he said just as they were about to leave, because he'd forgotten to do something very important. He rushed back upstairs to his room. He knelt down next to the jacket and rested his head on the bed, looking at it and memorising it. "Goodbye," he said, "See you after school," he gave it a farewell stroke.

"Yeah, whatever, now hurry up before you're late,"

"Have a good day!" came the two replies he didn't hear. He hurried back downstairs, eager to obey the echoes of his family.

"Ready now?" asked Pastor Jim, Sammy nodded.

They weren't the only ones walking to school on this fine morning. There were other children with their mother or fathers, holding hands, running after their brothers and sisters in a playful game of chase. Sammy thought that it was these kinds of scenes that should bring a pang of remembrance and grief, but he'd never done those things, it was walking past the ammunitions store in the centre of town that really hit him. Walking past and not going in. It was all so _wrong_.

Pastor Jim waited by the school gates with him for the principal to come and greet them, like she'd asked to. She appeared soon enough, striding through the crowds of children and stopped just in front of them. She shook them both by the hand.

"Thank you for meeting me," she said, "I am Mrs. Harper. Now, if you'd like to follow me," she lead them through the mass of children to inside the school building, where it was still quiet. "You've only missed a week so it shouldn't be hard to catch up, but if you feel you need extra help, you can always ask," Sammy was sure he wouldn't need extra help, he and Dean had been doing their homework together and he'd even been able to understand some of Dean's.

Mrs. Harper showed them around the school, Sammy didn't pay much attention, except for where the toilets were. The tour ended five minutes after the bell had gone with Sammy's new classroom.

"This is your new class, Sammy, and your teacher, Miss Bell," Mrs. Harper opened the door and ushered him in. The noise of the class slowly died down and they all looked at him curiously, he glanced back out the door and Pastor Jim waved goodbye to him.

"Ah, now, class!" said Miss Bell, "This is Sam Winchester, he's new so be nice to him,"

"It's Sammy," said Sammy. He couldn't bear the thought of no one ever calling him that name again, so he made it so everyone would.

"Ah, Sorry. If you'd like to take a seat, Sammy," Sammy sat down at the only empty desk and ignored the few whispers around him.

Their first period was math and Sammy loved it. It wasn't too hard, wasn't too easy and just mindless enough that he could lose himself among the numbers and symbols. The second period was English and while not so good as math, it was making for a much better day than any other in the past two weeks.

At recess Sammy sat on a low wall that was on the far side of the playground. He just wanted to sit and watch, he felt too detached to do anything else. Lots of people had told him that he didn't have to do anything if he didn't want to and right now, he just didn't want to play.

The other children weren't going to leave him in peace, though, he was just too different from them to be left alone. The first to come up to him was a group of girls, one with startling blonde hair stepped forward while the other three just stood behind her and stared with wide eyes.

"My mommy told me all about what happened," she said almost reverently. Sammy didn't reply, "What's it like not having a mom or a dad?" Sammy looked up from the floor and at the girl. He shrugged, "Have you ever had a mommy?" continued the girl.

"No, not really," said Sammy quietly, looking at the floor again because the girls were looking at him as though being an orphan was a weird new facial feature. The most forward girl looked at a loss as to what to say, "It never really mattered, though, 'cause I had Dean,"

"That your brother?" Sammy nodded, "But he's gone too, now?" Sammy nodded again. The girl paused and then turned back to her friends, whispering together, then she faced Sammy again, with her hands behind her back and said, "Well, our mommies told us to be real nice to you so, here," she handed over what she'd been hiding behind her. Sammy took the gifts. There was a wilting daisy chain, half a packet of Skittles and a screwed up piece of paper, which turned out to have a drawing of a flower and a smiley sun on it in crayon. Sammy looked up at the four girls and gave them the smallest smile. "So, we'll be playing over there," she pointed just beyond the end of the wall, "If you want to come join us," Sammy said nothing so the girls just left.

Seeing the girls leave, a group of four boys reckoned it was their turn to talk to the new boy.

"Hey," said one of them as they crowded around him, "You're the guy whose family's all dead, aren't you?" Sammy nodded, when were people going to stop talking about it?

"I heard that you saw them, did you?" asked another boy, he was far too eager. Sammy looked up sharply. "What was it like? Was there blood everywhere?" Sammy stood up suddenly. Yes, there had been blood everywhere. "Did you get there when they were dead? 'Cause my daddy says things go stiff when they die," the four boys all looked equally eager to hear the answers. Something boiled up inside in Sammy that was different from the grief, the sadness and the hollowness of the past two weeks. He was angry, angry like he'd never been before. Why were these boys asking all these questions? Why did no one leave him alone? Why had he let them leave the motel? Why had they died? Why weren't they here with him? Why hadn't they let him come with them? Why did he still have to be alive? "Well? Didja see them or not?"

Before he knew what was going on, his fist had connected with the boy's face. He stared in shock at the boy sprawled on the floor and rubbed his knuckles as the soreness crept into them. One of the other boys was looking at him, also shocked, while the other two had already tore off across the playground to find a teacher. When they returned, teacher and all, the scene hadn't much changed.

The teacher, it was Miss Bell, upon seeing the perpetrator of the crime, immediately lost all of her anger. She took the hand of the crying boy, who was clutching his free hand to his face and held out her hand to Sammy. He didn't take it, he just trailed behind her on the way to the principal's office, ignoring the stares they were getting as they walked across the playground that suddenly seemed much larger than it had earlier.

Sammy sat outside the principal's office while she talked to the other boy. Miss Bell had left, left him alone with his thoughts. He didn't like that. Dean would be laughing right now, seeing his angelic little brother outside the principal's office because he punched someone. But Dean wasn't who he was worrying about.

His dad would have been furious. You never punch someone if you're not in a fight. Never. He'd heard Dad tell that to Dean enough times and it had been drilled into him pretty hard too. He rocked back and forth on his chair, staring at his throbbing hand, all the while thinking, "Sorry, Daddy, so, so, so sorry, I'll never do it again, I promise." It was somehow worse knowing that his dad wouldn't shout at him, that his crime would go unpunished. The wild thought flew into his head that perhaps if his dad got angry enough, he'd come back to tell him off. There was nothing he wouldn't give to have his dad back, even if only for five minutes. There were so many things he could say in those five minutes, but mostly he just wanted to hold on and never let go.

He'd give the whole world to have his family back, but it just wasn't his to give.

Something touched his hand and he jumped, only then realising that Mrs. Harper had been kneeling in front of him calling his name for a while now. He stopped rocking and looked hopefully into her eyes, perhaps she would tell him off, it would never be as good as his dad but it would be better than nothing. She led him into her office.

"I realise that you are going through a difficult time. Sammy, if you ever feel the need to talk about anything, find a teacher, we are all here for you," she kept talking but Sammy stopped listening.

"Dude, she's being understanding? My teachers were never understanding!" Sammy smiled, his brother could always make him smile. He would never talk to a teacher, there were some things you couldn't tell a teacher, and Sam was tired of thinking up lies, cover stories, so he didn't say anything at all. Except one thing,

"I shouldn't have punched him," Mrs. Harper stopped whatever it was she was saying and stared at Sammy, she opened her mouth to say something but Sammy got there first, "Dad'll be so angry," she shut her mouth, it formed a thin, straight line. She sighed.

"Go get your things, Sammy, I'll call Pastor Jim and tell him to pick you up. You can have the rest of the day off," Sammy got up and wandered vaguely to his classroom, collected his things and packed them away.

"You lucky bastard," Sammy waited for his dad to say something about language, but the remonstration never came. He realised it was because Dean had never said anything. He waited outside the principal's office to be picked up.

Pastor Jim said nothing to him when he arrived. He only thanked Mrs. Harper and then steered Sammy out with a gentle hand on his back. The playground was empty by then, but the walk still seemed long with the eyes of every child staring out of the windows. They walked slowly home together.

Pastor Jim only turned to look at him when they were inside the house. He knelt down in front of Sammy and helped him remove his coat but remained kneeling even after that was done. Then he just looked at Sammy and Sammy looked back at him. Sammy hated the open acceptance in his eyes, why didn't anyone just tell him off like he deserved? Slowly, the gaze broke through the small wall Sammy had built around himself. This waiting understanding called out to Sammy to just talk, tell him everything.

"They kept asking me questions," his lower lip starting wobbling and he tightened his mouth up to try and stop it, "Why does-" he paused as one tear rolled down his cheek and he tried desperately to stop another following. He sucked in a hitching breath as he realised he couldn't stop the tears, "Why does ev-everyone-" he was properly sobbing now, as he tried the question for a third time, "Why d-does everyone keep re-reminding me?" he finally managed to burst out. Pastor Jim didn't have any answers for him, only arms for him to fall into and a shoulder for him to rest his head on.

The rest of the afternoon passed without Sammy paying much attention to it. As the evening rolled in, Sammy still enjoyed the routine of dinner, TV, get washed, get ready for bed. He was too exhausted to not get into bed, though.

He was somewhere between waking and sleep when he noticed it. The way the wardrobe, when his eyes were almost closed, looked sort of like his dad leaning against the wall. The way the duvet lay across his should that, if he thought about it, felt kind of like his brother's hand. He grinned and let himself drift off to sleep.

TBC


	3. Moving Homes

What If Dean Had Asthma?

Chapter Three: Moving Homes  


It was Sammy's last night at Pastor Jim's. Tomorrow he was going to live with his new foster family. It wasn't a huge move, he was still going to be going to the same school with the same friends and could easily walk back to Pastor Jim's if he wanted. It was still quite a large change, though and Sam didn't like change at all because so far in his life, it hadn't done him a lot of good.

He was having a small farewell party at Pastor Jim's and had invited Natalie along to join in, even though he'd be seeing her just as often as ever. He would have invited Robby and Ben, but they weren't always the most sensitive of people and this could prove to be a sensitive time. Anyway, Natalie was the only one who knew his secrets. She was a little too perceptive and had noticed the books in different languages, the symbols, the copious amounts of salt (no one is _that_ clumsy) and the fact that Sammy owned a very expensive-looking and sharp knife.

No one else had even an inkling. He had only been there a year. Still, it was longer than he'd stayed anywhere else. He almost liked it, except that it was because his family were dead.

He hated that he compared everything he did to what it was like before his dad and Dean died. Hated that he measured how long he'd known people in terms of _before_ and_ after_. Though the_ before_ group wasn't too large. In fact, he measured everything that way, compared every single thing. The thoughts came to him unbidden, everything was different and he _noticed_ that everything was different. Even the damn spaghettios tasted different when anyone who wasn't Dean cooked them. But these thoughts also made him sad, it had been just over a year, that was all and already he was noticing the changes less. He was becoming more used to life without Dad and Dean, forgetting things.

How could he be forgetting things? He thought about Dad and Dean all the time, there wasn't a moment went by when he didn't feel their loss. But that, apparently, wasn't enough. There were little things, like his dad's face just as he got his first gulp of coffee in the morning, he couldn't even remember if there had even been anything special about it. And what had Dean looked like when they'd watched cartoons together? God knows they'd done it enough but there was nothing, just that they used to do it, and Sam would lean against Dean because Dean would let him.

He worried about forgetting his family, he didn't want them to become creatures of myth like his mother had been. Some days he panicked and just wrote down anything he could think of, any small quirk or scene that played itself before him. This helped him to remember more. Except he wasn't remembering them, not really, he only remembered the words and pictures he'd conjured for himself to help him remember. He would remember writing the memory down and how it made him feel and between those things he pieced the memory back together, but it wasn't like a normal memory, not like one that came easily and naturally, he had to work to keep it and that somehow made it less real.

That was another reason he didn't really want to leave Pastor Jim. Pastor Jim was like one living and breathing reminder and the house was full of memories too. He'd seen his dad and Dean talk to Pastor Jim and Sammy knew that he remembered them as well. He liked that, it was almost a physical connection to the past, a knowledge that he wasn't the only one missing them. It soothed him sometimes and reminded him he wasn't alone, there were still people there for him.

Going to this new place scared him. It was fresh, it was clean, it was free of anything Dean and Dad. Sammy had to bring as much of them with him as he could because it would be all he had. There were precious few people in the world that could give him an insight into his family and he was leaving one of them behind. It scared him so much he could cry. He had cried.

So, this was why it was only Natalie he'd invited. Because she and her friends had been so nice to him on his first day of school and had continued like that until he'd eventually started to be enjoyable to be around. Also, it meant there would be less to cook, which was good because Sammy was doing the cooking to say thank you to Pastor Jim. Natalie could also help (as long as they didn't tell her mom because she wasn't really allowed near hot things).

It wasn't a very flashy meal. Peas, spaghettios and sausages. The spaghettios still didn't taste like Dean had cooked them. Sammy was kind of relieved to find this because it meant there was something he hadn't forgotten.

Sammy was silent for the most part of the meal, leaving Pastor Jim and Natalie to do most of the talking. He liked it that way, just letting the voices wash over him as he ate his last dinner at this table. He had to remind himself that he wasn't leaving anyone here behind, they were going to stay in his life and for a moment, he let himself just get carried away on the bliss that was that thought.

As the meal drew to a close, he started wishing something would happen that would mean he didn't have to leave. The end of his farewell party being so close made him realise the enormity of what was about to happen, something he'd been trying to ignore ever since the date had been set to this weekend.

It wasn't that he didn't like Mr. And Mrs. Milton, they seemed perfectly nice. It was just such a huge move and he liked it here with Pastor Jim and everything was going well here and he really didn't want to move. It was like when Dad had made them pack everything up and move, except without the perk of actually having a dad.

He was almost crying by the time Natalie hugged him goodbye. He told himself that could wait for when he got into bed. He wasn't going to ruin his last night at Pastor Jim's by crying through it. Natalie was picked up by her mother and called back to Sam before she disappeared down the road,

"See you at school on Monday!" which helped because it reminded Sammy that this wasn't the end of the world and that everything would continue after it happened. He'd been through worse, he thought defiantly.

That defiance lasted until around about the time he climbed into bed and said goodnight to Pastor Jim. He remembered the tears that he'd been on the brink of just a few hours earlier, but as he lay in bed he just couldn't find them. He felt hollow instead. Unsure of what was going to happen and with butterflies in his stomach the size of elephants, he snuggled further into his bed and clutched the jacket tighter.

The jacket didn't smell like Dad and Dean anymore but Sammy ignored that. He liked to think the jacket had been worn by his dad so many times, it had become a part of him and Dean had always loved it. Sammy hated to think what Dean would've said if he'd thrown the jacket away. Sammy wasn't ever going to throw it away.

He'd thrown away a lot of Dad and Dean's things. He'd kept most of Dean's clothes because he'd fit into them one day and his dad had brought him up to be practical in these matters. Also, Dean's clothes still smelled of him because they hadn't been touched much. When Sammy was feeling the loss of his family a lot more than the usual everyday dull ache or he was particularly distressed over his loss of memories, he'd take them out and the smell would remind him that everything would be all right. He only did that when he was in dire need because he wanted Dean to stay in those clothes, not liked he'd already rubbed him out of the jacket.

He'd kept his dad's journal, of course. It would be useful for when he went back to hunting, or if something decided to come after him, as well as being an insight into his dad that he'd never got during the short nine years they'd had together. He hadn't yet read it, it still felt like a betrayal to read his dad's innermost thoughts. When he'd first picked it up, opened it to the first page and started to read, his eyes had blurred after the first sentence and he'd put it back in its box. It was still there, untouched since that day.

The impala was now a permanent fixture in Pastor Jim's garage. It was somewhere that Sammy would go when he wanted somewhere quiet to sit. Not that Pastor Jim's house was particularly noisy, but it was the most calming place for him to sit. He was taking it with him to his new home, there was no way he'd leave it behind.

Sammy had given all the weapons he didn't know how to use to Pastor Jim, as well as the few books they had. Sammy didn't know that much Latin yet and he thought that Pastor Jim might be able to put them to better use. While he'd been staying there, he'd seen the other hunters that had passed through and learnt that his family wasn't the only one Pastor Jim had helped.

He'd also learnt to stay out of the way when other people visited, otherwise it always came up. _Who's this?_ they'd ask, _Sammy Winchester,_ Pastor Jim would reply and then they'd say things that Sammy was beyond tired of hearing. _Oh yes, I was sorry to hear that_;_ he was a good man_;_ he was a good hunter_;_ it was a real shame_; _a real loss_;_ pity about his son, too_. Dean was always an afterthought, just another casualty in the fight. He wasn't a great fighter like Dad. He couldn't be because Dad left him behind to do all the things Dad was too busy fighting to do, like bring up Sammy.

Sammy stopped at that thought, shocked at what his own brain had come up with. He hadn't meant it, he didn't think ill of his dad, not at all. He'd just got carried away in his anger. He was sorry he'd thought it, he'd never think it again.

He slept awfully that night. He wondered if the butterflies hadn't got their elephant friends to come join in and just wished they would all go away so he could get a good night's sleep. Or at least some sleep. He tossed and turned for hours, trying to fix his mind on something that wasn't how much not having Dad or Dean still hurt or how much he didn't want to go live with the Miltons or how much his life just sucked right about now.

If something had bothered Sam this much before, then Dad probably would have killed it by now and Dean would be there to tell him how stupid he'd been for fussing in the first place, but then he'd ruffle Sammy's hair or punch him on the arm to show that he didn't mind. His problems weren't killable any more. Well, there was one way killing could solve everything but just imagining the look on Dad and Dean's face was enough to push all ideas of that kind out of his head.

He did get to sleep eventually, but it wasn't in the slightest bit restful or peaceful. His mind had returned to the worst moment of his life and was succeeding in making it even worse than usual.

Dean's rattling breaths were loud in his ear. The trees were tall and dark, the sky overhead cloudy and tinged red with a fire Sammy couldn't see. Dean was standing with his back to a tree, eyes darting all around and the shadows leapt for him, closing in on all sides. He blindly fired off a few shots, scratched at his throat, which was obviously giving him trouble, and then put both hands back on the gun, knuckles white he was clutching it so hard.

There were some yells from the darkness, Dean took in a long breath that didn't give him nearly as much air as it should have done and called for his dad. He received only another yell in reply. Dean pushed off from the tree he was leaning on and landed against another one coughing hard. The breaths in were now catching in his throat as he tried to drag in all the air he needed and then expel it again just as desperately. Stumbling from tree to tree, he made it almost ten yards before he had to collapse to his knees and concentrate solely on his breathing. He fired a shot off to his left at a black shape he saw out of the corner of his eye, not checking if he got it, or if there was even anything to get. He tried calling for his dad again but his voice was even weaker than the first time he tried. He glanced all around him, there was nothing but black tree trunks, fading away into black night, black leaves waving at him, black shadows waiting to engulf him. He coughed his throat raw.

A growl alerted him to one of the hell hounds' presence. He shot and hit it in the paw, enough for it to melt away again but it was still there, watching Dean as he choked and coughed. He let out another call for his dad, but it was a pitiful attempt and his dad had been awfully quiet since his last yell.

Dean fell sideways and scrabbled at his neck as if he could scratch a new hole in it. He didn't have much time left and he knew it as he stared up at the sky. This was a scene Sammy was familiar with. Dean was dizzy and confused. His mind was sluggish and centred wholly around his breathing, or his lack of it. Dean's jaw worked as though that would entice more air either way. His whole body was writhing with the effort to breathe, as though kicking out at the floor would some how expand his lungs. His chest and diaphragm were convulsing desperately but the sounds from Dean's mouth made Sammy's legs give way beneath him. The wheezing was quiet now and high pitched, it was squeaking in Sam's ears, squealing, _this is the last noise your brother ever made_.

Tears were running freely from Dean's eyes, he rolled onto his side, facing Sammy. He put both his hands back on the gun and held it close to him, the only thing he could protect himself with. It was useless against this enemy and he knew it, but he didn't have anything else to hold on to.

Then the wheezing stopped. Dean's eyes went wide. His chest still laboured in a futile attempt to drag oxygen through the now sealed airway. Everything began to slow, Dean's legs stopped kicking the hands that clutched the gun so hard began to grow lax. His whole body stilled. He blinked slowly once, twice, the third time his eyes didn't open again.

Then his dad burst onto the scene. He was scratched and scraped to hell but the broken look on his face when he saw his son was what looked the most painful. John ran towards Dean but was leapt on by one of the hellhounds while he wasn't paying them any attention.

He was on his back, his gun had flown out of his hand, one hound sitting on his chest and the other two were quickly approaching.

The fight was short and gruesome.

The hounds melted away again when all was done. Sammy wiped the blood from where it'd splashed on his face and pushed himself back along the ground until he hit a tree, then he tried to push himself through it. Then he saw something he never wanted to see ever again.

Dean was looking at him. The lifeless eyes were staring at him, through him, wide in fright and horror. Staring out of the dead, expressionless face. Staring and unmoving.

Sammy sat up in his bed shaking, sweating, crying. He threw off his cover, dragged himself to the side of the bed and threw up.

The next morning Pastor Jim phoned Barbara and Ed Milton and had a long conversation that Sammy didn't listen to while he half-heartedly pushed his cereal around the bowl. He was still going, if he didn't go now he'd have to go later, so he'd decided to get it over and done with. He was all packed and ready anyway.

That didn't stop the butterflies dancing around in his belly.

They loaded up the car and left as soon as possible because Sammy didn't think he could bear to be this anxious for any longer than he had to be. He'd never seen the house before and as they pulled up, he thought it looked quite nice. It wouldn't really take much for Sammy to think a house was nice, though. He'd call something that wasn't a motel room and had a garden nice, regardless of the house itself.

Babara and Ed Milton were standing on the porch, also looking quite anxious, which made Sammy feel better. He smiled from the car and they waved back. They walked down to the car to meet him and help bring all of his stuff up to the house. Not that he had much stuff, he still didn't see any reason to buy lots of useless junk. He was still ready to pack up and move at any moment, it was a habit of a lifetime.

"Hello again, Sammy!" said Barbara, bending down to his level and holding out her hand. She had found out on their previous meeting that he wasn't very prone to hugging people he barely knew. They shook hands. He also shook hands with Ed, who then picked up the one bag left in the car. Pastor Jim had the other two.

"This all you got?" Sam nodded, "We'll just take these on up to your room, that okay?" Sam nodded, he knew that the Miltons were trying to make everything easy for him, make sure he knew what was happening and he was grateful for that. But about small things like that? He really didn't care. Except about one thing,

"Don't open them," Barbara looked relieved that he spoke because he hadn't spoken at all in her presence yet.

"Don't worry, I won't. You go along with Barbara now, I think we've some cookies waiting in the kitchen," Barbara ushered Sammy along in front of her. Sammy was startled by this, it was something that Dad and Dean used to do. Keep him in front of them, where he could be seen, where they could watch him and keep him safe. He liked the feeling of being watched over and even though Barbara could never live up to either Dad or Dean, the gesture was appreciated.

They sat at the kitchen table in silence for a few moments, a plate of still-warm cookies between them.

"You can call us Mom and Dad,"

"I won't," Sammy replied immediately. He didn't say it petulantly, just that he was stating a fact. Moms were people who died on the ceiling in flames and he could only ever have one Dad. But Barbara hadn't quite understood and she looked a little hurt by Sammy's brisk reply, even though she was trying to hide it, "I already have a Mom and a Dad, they're just not... here," he explained. Barbara's face brightened,

"Oh, I see, that's fine, whatever you want. You can call us Barbara and Ed, then," the silences in this conversation were almost physically painful. Sammy didn't mean to be so rude, he just couldn't think of anything to say. "We want you to feel at home here. We don't want to replace your father or anyone. We want you to be as happy as possible," said Barbara, "Let's make this a good start to a new life, what do you say?"

Sammy nodded, even though he'd quite liked the old one.

TBC


	4. Endurance

What If Dean Had Asthma?

Chapter Four: Endurance

Sammy climbed off the school bus. He sighed, these were his last minutes of freedom before school and he hadn't done his English homework, so he could already tell it wasn't going to be a good day. His teachers despaired of him sometimes, he was such a gifted child but he didn't always put his gifts to use. His grades had taken a slight, but noticeable downturn since the beginning of the year, because the work had actually started to get that little bit more taxing and so required actual effort to complete.

Many people had, by now, pulled the 'what would your father think?' card. The Miltons had started it and then from there it had spread to his teachers when they took him aside to speak to him. Sammy thought it over every time, how Dad had only really paid attention to Dean's grades when they were getting dangerously near failing and teachers were starting to interfere. Every time he was able to look the teacher, or Ed or Barbara in the face and say with the utmost truth that his father wouldn't have cared. The teachers usually took it to be teenage petulance, being contrary just for the sake of it but Ed and Barbara now believed it. They'd seen enough of what John had taught his son and heard enough stories of Sam's past that they believed him. They quite didn't understand Sammy's loyalty to John, knowing only half the story as they did, but, they supposed, a father was a father and Sammy was going to stick by him.

They thanked God with all their hearts that Dean had been there for Sammy.

Sammy was making his way towards the school building when he saw some kids throwing books around. But not their books. No, there was a kid lying on the floor in the middle whose books they were. He'd seen that kid around, smiled at him a few times, had no idea what his name was but no one deserved what was happening to him now. Sammy felt particularly protective over him, even though he didn't know him, because he had asthma. Sammy felt a need to look out for people with asthma. The last thing he wanted was his brothers last moments playing out before him through someone else.

So, Sammy went over to the four of them and used his newly-gained height to snatch back the books and used the extra year he had on the three bullies to tell them to piss off. He the knelt down beside the kid who'd been kicked to the floor to hand his books back. He could hear the wheezing.

It was a sound that sent Sammy into panic. It made his brain scream at him to wake up, so he didn't have to watch what came next. But he wasn't asleep and nothing bad had to come next. He got himself under control, berating himself that his dad certainly hadn't taught him to panic in a difficult situation.

"Where's your inhaler?" he asked.

"Bag," said the kid, pointing to a bag lying forlornly a few yards away, contents spewed out across the tarmac. Sammy ran to it and dug around inside it, finding nothing he searched the side pockets. Of course, he searched through every other pocket possible before coming to the right one. Inhalers hadn't changed since his brother used them. He hurried back to the kid, who was just getting back on his feet.

Sammy picked up the kid's stuff and shoved it back in the bag while the both of them recovered. Sammy's heart was beating far too fast for a situation where no one's life was being threatened. He handed the bag back to the kid, who inundated him with thanks. Sammy felt a little stupid for panicking so much now, though he was glad the kid wasn't anything like Dean, he knew Dean would have rather died than let anyone help him like that. Sammy inwardly cringed at his choice of words.

"Are you okay now?" he asked,

"Oh yes!" the kid beamed, "Thank you so much!"

"Nah, it was nothing. I'm Sammy, what's your name?" the kid looked like this was his best day ever. Not only had someone helped him but they wanted to be his friend as well! It was embarrassing how few he had.

"Dean," he informed Sammy. Sammy took such a sharp breath that he started choking and their conversation had to go on hold for a minute while he stopped coughing.

"Oh gosh, what's the matter?" Dean said, he put his hand tentatively on Sammy's back, not really sure if he was allowed this much contact already. Sammy finally straightened up and cleared his throat.

"I'm fine, it's just that that was my brother's name," Dean was a quick kid, he'd heard the past tense and worked out what it meant.

"Oh, sorry," they stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment before Dean's curiosity overcame him. He'd always been a curious child, "Would you mind if I asked how he died?" Sammy looked down at Dean, it was a ridiculous coincidence, that he'd found someone called Dean with asthma.

"Asthma attack," Dean stared at him for a moment.

"Oh," he said and then "O_h_," in realisation. "I remember that!"

"Yo do?" said Sammy in surprise. Who remembers random news reports from when they were eight?

"Yeah, my parents got way over-protective after that. You know, someone called Dean dies from asthma and they have a son called Dean who has asthma, they freaked out. I got so tired of them reminding me to take my medicine. They did it almost four times a day! Gosh, this is really insensitive of me, isn't it? Sorry," but Sammy was smiling. It was weird hearing about it from an outsider, someone whose world it didn't change completely, he'd never thought about how it sounded to strangers before.

"No, don't be sorry. It's kinda cool that you remember it."

Dean stayed with Sam at the lockers, making small talk and that was how Natalie found them. She bounced up, ever her happy self and smiled at Dean.

"Who's this then?" she asked.

"Dean," replied Sammy. Natalie blinked a few times and shook her head as though she didn't think she'd heard properly.

"What?"

"Dean," said Sammy again, "What's your last name?"

"Surrey,"

"Dean Surrey," Sammy told Natalie, with a smile.

"Not Dean Winchester, then?"

"Umm, no. That wouldn't be possible,"

"Yeah, I know, I thought you were showing me some crazy example of reincarnation or something. Hello Dean, I'm Natalie," she held out her hand for Dean to shake, which he did with a slightly confused expression. Then the bell rang and the three of them had to break up their small meeting and get to classes.

"That was a really nice thing you did for Dean today," Natalie told Sammy at the end of the day as they walked out of the school grounds. They'd let Dean hang around with them at recess and during lunch and he'd turned out to be quite a funny kid, not half as boring as he looked. Even Ben had seemed to like him, and Ben could be really moody these days. Sammy just nodded and smiled, "Those were some, uh, interesting theories he had about how stuff keeps ending up on the roof," Sammy laughed, Dean had enthusiastically told everyone about the ghost he'd seen in a classroom once for a split second and how it was the ghost that was putting things on the roof.

It _had_ been the ghost putting things there up until about two months ago, Sammy was pretty sure it was some seniors that were doing it now, because it sure as hell wasn't the ghost. "You remember when you told me ghosts and all that crap are real?" laughed Natalie. Sammy looked up at her, "That gave me nightmares, you had a really good imagination,"

"You didn't believe me?" said Sammy,

"Oh I believed you, I was so gullible when I was little. My mom almost marched to your house and told you off,"

"So, you don't believe me now?"

"Believe you now? You mean, you still believe in ghosts and everything?" Natalie was looking at him as though she was trying to work him out. He could be a difficult one for that.

"I don't believe, I _know_ in ghosts and everything,"

"You what?"

"I've seen ghosts, fought demonic monsters,"

"Right," said Natalie, clearly not believing a word of it, "Can we get back from your little world of fantasy and talk about something real now?" Sammy sighed, it was a fair reaction, really, Sammy hadn't spoken much about his after school activities for fear that someone would overhear and ridicule him.

"Fine, do you want to come over tonight?" he had something he could show Natalie to make her believe.

"I don't know, I've got a lot of homework that really needs doing,"

"Please? Not even for an hour?" he looked at her pleadingly, in a way that always got Natalie to do what he wanted. She sighed.

"Fine, yes, okay, just turn off the puppy-eyes. One hour, that's it," Sammy grinned and nodded.

"Come over after dark,"

"What are you going to do? Show me a ghost?"

"Yes," Sammy answered, completely serious. That was exactly what he was going to do. Natalie just rolled her eyes.

"You're ridiculous!" she said as she turned away to find her parents' car, "See you tonight!" she waved goodbye and Sammy started walking back to his house.

At five O'clock, just as it was getting dark, the doorbell rang and Sammy hurried down the stairs.

"Have you done your homework?" called Barbara.

"Yes!" came the automatic reply.

"Sammy, don't lie to me, have you done it?" Sammy stopped with his hand on the door handle. He turned to face Barbara, looking a little sheepish.

"No, I'll do it after dinner," Barbara stared at Sammy for a moment longer and then shook her head.

"What am I going to do with you?"

"You've adopted me now, you'll just have to live with me," said Sammy. Barbara sighed and went upstairs to do some put the laundry away. Sammy opened the door to Natalie, standing in the porch with a thick coat on. She quickly nipped inside and Sammy shut the door behind her.

Once Natalie had almost completely warmed up, Sammy decided it was time to show her the thing that would prove to her that ghosts were real. They went to the bottom of the back garden, into a little cove created by the bushes that couldn't be seen from the house. He pulled out a shoebox, looked at Natalie and then took off the lid.

"Oh Sammy, that's disgusting!" and it was. Sammy didn't like dealing with the remains of a few-years-dead Yorkshire terrier either, but this particular job required it. He poured salt on the remains and then some gasoline, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Just wait and watch," Sammy said and Natalie did, if only because she wanted to see where this was going. Sammy began calling quietly, as if he were calling the dog in the box, to get up and walk to him. Then, and Natalie almost overbalanced from the shock of it, a Yorkshire terrier materialised out of nowhere, all silvery and shimmering. Sammy smiled at Natalie's open, gaping mouth, but always kept an eye on the ghost. Natalie knew when to admit defeat and on this particular point she'd been wrong.

She regained control of herself again and began to creep towards the dog. It looked very sweet, despite it being dead. Sammy put an arm in front of her to stop her.

"Watch out, it bites," he whispered, trying not to get the dog's attention now it was here.

"Bites?" Natalie hadn't ever given the idea of ghosts that much thought beyond scary tales, but she didn't think they'd be able to hurt anyone once they were dead, surely they were just shadows of their living selves? Apparently not.

"There have been a few unexplained animal attacks around here recently. Here's the explanation," Sammy reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches.

"What are you going to do?"

"Get rid of it," he lit the match and threw it into the shoebox, where the gasoline did its work. The dog noticed the occupants of the little cove, now that its link with the living world was being broken. With one last desperate attempt at... something, whatever it is ghost dogs think they're supposed to do, Sammy wasn't sure, it leapt at Natalie, teeth bared and claws out. Luckily it burned out of existence before it really got stuck in, but Natalie still felt the scratch.

There were lines on her arm where it had touched her, nothing deep, the bleeding had already stopped, but she still looked at Sammy in complete shock.

"Sorry, that can happen sometimes," he shrugged, "So, do you believe me now?"

"Believe you? Jesus, Sammy! How the hell do you know how to do that?"

"It was what my family used to do. Find these things, hunt them down and kill them," Sammy watched Natalie's face carefully. He'd never told that to anyone outright before. Not even Ed and Barbara knew because they would freak if they knew about the bag of weapons he kept under his bed. It was quite easy to keep the secret. It wasn't like there was an overabundance of the supernatural around, he merely went after something if it turned up near him, he couldn't go chasing after things like his dad had.

"So, your dad..." Natalie wasn't sure quite how to word her question, "He wasn't really killed by a pack of wild dogs?"

"Sort of, they were dogs of the hellish variety." It was strange how talking about his dad's death didn't make him hurt. He thought it should, really, but right now he was more worried about how uncomfortable this conversation was for Natalie as she tried to negotiate her way through the subject without causing any harm. Sammy had locked all the hurt and pain away, where it couldn't bother him in his day to day life. Sometimes it overflowed and even though seven years had passed, seven whole years, there were still mornings when he almost couldn't see the point of getting up. But for the most part, there was just a small amount, always there, like background radiation.

"What about Dean?" Okay, so that subject could still pack a bit of a punch. It was probably because it was the last thing Sammy would have thought of happening to Dean. Spirit threw him down the stairs? Fine. Black dog ripped his head off? Completely expected. But asthma attack? It was too against Dean's nature, it had been too much of a surprise and it still seemed slightly wrong.

"No, that really was an asthma attack. I found his inhalers back at the motel afterwards, he'd forgotten to take them with him,"

"Oh, Sammy!" was all Natalie could say before she flung herself on him.

It was weird to have someone other than Pastor Jim that knew about his past. Well, no one could ever understand it quite like Pastor Jim did and Natalie didn't understand everything that hunting involved, but it was a small relief to have someone else that knew. It was a bigger relief to find that Natalie didn't change how she acted around him at all. She still went home exactly an hour after she'd arrived.

The rest of the evening passed in exactly the same way every other evening had that week, with the exception of him actually doing some homework. The disappointed looks Ed and Barbara gave him sometimes were just starting to get to him and make him feel bad.

So, because he had done at least some of his homework and because Natalie knew the truth, Sammy went to bed with a very light heart. He thought maybe it was light enough for him to finally finish reading his dad's journal.

Sammy pulled his dad's journal out from under his bed, where it lay next to his weapons. He'd been avoiding this for weeks, months. It was the final entry. His dad's personal entries had been getting fewer and further between as the years went on. Most pages were full of newspaper cuttings and pictures, information on new monsters he'd found and safely dispatched.

Sammy stared at the leather cover for a long time, thinking over all the times his dad must have touched it, all the time he'd spent writing in it, transferring knowledge into it and then referring back to it. He stroked the old, beaten leather and then opened it. He slowly turned each page, treating each of them like a thin sheet of glass and reading a few words on each page, reminding himself what had happened, what his dad was like. Then he came to a few notes on hellhounds. Little extra notes to add to what information there already was.

Sammy turned the page and there it was, the final entry. Just a few lines, a few lines he didn't want to read. But he had to.

_Just read it already, for Christ's sake_ he told himself, annoyed with being so wary of this last entry. Come on, it was hardly going to kill him. He focused back on the browning paper and his dad's handwriting.

_August 25th 1992_

_Found small pack of hellhounds, should be easy. Taking Dean so he can learn. Don't like leaving Sammy alone so should get it done quickly. Will take Dean on more hunts if all goes well._

If all goes well. Sammy stared at those last few words, the last words his dad had ever written, anger building up inside him until he was almost shaking. He threw the journal at the far wall and found himself yelling at the top of his lungs.

"What if all doesn't go well, Dad? What then?" He slid off his bed onto the floor. He'd meant to go pick up the journal, pick up the pictures and papers it had spewed everywhere when it hit the wall, but he couldn't. He felt drained. He was angry at his dad for taking Dean, angry at Dean for going, angry at the hellhounds for existing. But being angry at dead things was pointless and exhausting, so he merely looked at the journal where it lay.

_If all goes well_. He could have laughed.

TBC


	5. Longing

What If Dean Had Asthma?

Chapter 5: Longing

Here he was in his new room. There were just a few boxes of his things on the side of the room that appeared to be his because the other side had already been taken. Here he was in Stanford, finally. It had been a lot of work to get here. There had been fights and moments of despair when he couldn't see the point. But, thanks to his extremely clever brain and Pastor Jim, Natalie, Ed and Barbara, he'd been able to pull himself together and get on with it.

He shrugged his jacket off and hugged it before laying it on the bed. It was odd how a road trip of "self-discovery" had given the jacket back its smell, the one that couldn't help but bring forth an overwhelming feeling of Dean and Dad.

Driving through anonymous towns and along endless country roads had brought back so many memories, Sammy wondered where they'd all been hiding for so many years. He listened to the tapes that hadn't been touched since Ed had accidentally smashed his tape player. Perhaps that had been for the best, because the music sounded so much better out on the open road than it had in his bedroom. He could almost envision Dean next to him head banging, or singing along until Dad told him to shut up or, if he was in a good mood, joined in. That was when Sammy would join in as well and the three of them would be speeding down the road singing, Dean always the most enthusiastic and Sammy the least because he didn't really know the words, but what did that matter when it was only him and his dad and Dean in the car?

Then Sammy had opened his eyes because he'd almost drifted completely off the road.

The first motel he'd stopped at, he'd asked for a room with two beds, because that was just what you did when you went to motels. He'd never needed less than two beds when he went to a motel and he'd heard his dad get the room so many times that it just slipped out, the same words and in the same tone as his dad used to use. He'd even received the slightly curious glance that his dad used to get when he ordered his sons into the room and to get the weapons. Except, Sammy only got the glance because he'd asked for two beds when there was only one of him.

Sammy had almost panicked the next morning when he woke up and saw the other bed empty and couldn't feel any evidence of Dean ever being the bed with him. Then his brain had caught up with the situation.

He'd begun to get back into eating in diners and fast food joints and picking up snacks at gas stations. It had surprised him how familiar it all still was. It had surprised him even more to find that his smile still got him some concessions in certain places, though for entirely different reasons now.

He appreciated the Impala's reliability, because he was never as good at car maintenance as his brother or father. The Impala had just kept going, would go anywhere so long as you kept her filled up with gas. Sammy gained something similar to his family's love of the car and how it had been everywhere with him, from the moment his mother had been taken until now, he loved it. Same as his dad had, same as Dean had. He felt a small jolt of guilt that he was driving the car when Dean had never got the chance, though not for lack of trying.

He really started get into the trip when he'd walked into the copy shop and dredged up every memory and piece of information he had about forging ID. Dean had explained it to him numerous times when there hadn't been anything else to talk about and there was nothing on TV and Sammy had just been _bored_.

It wasn't too bad for his first go, considering he was working from memories of nine years ago and it passed inspection in the few bars that Sammy tried it out in. He'd had to stop in a few bars, if only because Dean couldn't. He felt it was his duty to experience everything in his brother's stead, because he just knew Dean would have loved it the moment he stepped in. Sammy hadn't stopped in many, though, he didn't want to push his luck with the ID.

Sammy had also found the reason his father had frequented bars so often. Aside from the obvious draw, people were far less tight-lipped in bars and gave some good, if drunken, leads.

Yes, Sammy had gone hunting. He'd trawled papers for signs of the paranormal, checked the Internet for helpful hints and tips on killing things where John's journal was lacking (the Internet was such a useful invention, he wasn't sure how his dad had managed without it). Most leads had turned out to be dead ends and half of the real ones he had to pass on because they required a weapon he hadn't got, or more than one person, or just someone more skilled than he was. The few he did go on ended with him being beat to hell, because training sessions with Pastor Jim just weren't good enough substitutes for the real deal.

But killing that pack of three hellhounds had just felt _so_ good. He hadn't a clue if they were the same ones but he hoped they were at least related.

The trip hadn't been as lonely as it sounds. He'd had regular emails from Natalie, Dean (Surrey, obviously) and his other school friends and he'd phoned to check in with Ed and Barbara every so often. Then there were the people he'd met on his travels, even another hunter on a job. Upon hearing Sammy's name he'd cocked his head to one side and mused aloud. _Winchester? Why does that name sound familiar?_ Turned out he'd taken out an angry spirit named Winchester a few months back. Sammy's heart had frozen upon hearing that. What if Dean and Dad weren't somewhere among the clouds, where Sammy had always told himself they'd gone to make himself feel better? But it had been a Sarah Winchester, so Sammy had dismissed that thought because it was never going to lead anywhere good.

When he'd returned home with a prominent black eye, cuts and bruises all over and a broken finger, Barbara had given him a look of pure '_oh, Sammy!_' while Ed had stood by looking concerned. Sammy had grinned at them. His life was good. He'd loved living with Dean and Dad, of course, but his life now had its perks, too. A stable home to go back to after all his travelling was just one of them.

The jacket had regained its characteristic smell of engine oil, smoke, musty motel and dead evil. It was still missing the underlying _John Winchester_ that had once been there, but Sammy had long ago accepted that that was never coming back.

Ed and Barbara came into the room and looked all around, seeing if the room was good enough for their son. Apparently it was, which was good because there wasn't another one available. They were followed shortly by a guy about Sammy's age whom he could only assume to be his roommate. Barbara looked Sammy up and down before hugging him fiercely and Sammy didn't resist at all. Ed also pulled him into a hug, although a slightly less fierce one.

"You phone soon, all right?" said Barbara, and Sammy was sure he could hear her voice cracking.

"Of course!" he assured her before she hugged and kissed him all over again. Eventually, when Barbara could bring herself to, they left.

For a moment it was like he was nine again. Alone, stranded and with no idea of what the hell he was meant to be doing. Then his roommate introduced himself and the world started moving again.

"Hi, I'm Todd," they shook hands, "Your folks seem nice," he nodded after Ed and Barbara. Sam stared out the door after them.

"They're not... they're," even after all they'd done for him and how long he'd lived with them he still didn't think of them as his parents and they understood that. They couldn't replace Dad and Dean, no one could. But Sammy didn't want to launch into his life's story, not yet, "Yeah," he finished lamely. "I'm Sammy, by the way,"

"Cool," there was a short pause while the both of them took a moment to let everything sink in, "So, need any help unpacking?" Sammy accepted Todd's offer and together they unpacked the few boxes Sammy had with him, he still packed light.

The last things Sammy unpacked, aside from the weapons, which he didn't unpack at all, were his pictures. He had one of his mom and dad looking very happy together, he wished he could have known them then. Then, working in chronological order, was a picture of him, Dean and Dad sitting on the Impala after some trip, Sammy couldn't really remember it, not even who had taken the photo. It hadn't occurred to him that one day, the picture that was being taken might be a lonely reminder of the life he once had.

The next picture was of him with Ed and Barbara. It had been taken before he'd really started smiling again and so most people's first comment upon seeing it was _Jesus, who died?_ and the smile faded from their faces as they heard the answer to a question they'd never think of asking ever again. Sammy liked it because of the pure, unabashed joy on Ed and Barbara's faces. They loved him even when he was being the most difficult child on Earth and it warmed his heart to know that.

There were a few pictures between then and high school with friends at birthday parties and one with Pastor Jim caught completely unawares (he wasn't fond of having his picture taken). The last picture frame was large and unwieldy and packed with photos of him out with his high school friends. It was a present from them at the end of the school year. They'd all made one for one other person in the group, like a secret Santa but with photos and nothing to do with Christmas.

Todd asked about every single photo. Sammy patiently answered them, it was bound to come up sooner or later anyway. Todd worked out for himself the answer to the _who died?_ question. Sammy sincerely hoped he wasn't going to be this nosy about all aspects of life, because that could prove to be a problem.

The day passed in a blur of new people and new things. When he returned back to his room, Todd nowhere to be seen just yet, Sammy was completely wiped out. He fell back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was feeling almost nostalgic.

Perhaps it was all the new things around him that made him long for something old.

Perhaps it was seeing all those twenty-two-year-olds that made him wonder what Dean would look like, would act like, would _be_ like if he had lived this long.

Perhaps it was the Motorhead playing on the radio.

All Sammy knew was the feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was a strange feeling, like he longed for something, without knowing exactly what it was. Like he longed for something he'd lost. But he wasn't mourning its loss, that was an equally familiar but altogether different feeling. Yes, he was sad that he'd lost whatever it was, but he was also glad that he'd ever had it. It was a bittersweet feeling.

It may seem obvious what he wanted, that he was longing for his family back and yes, somewhere inside him he always was, but the feeling could be about any number of things. Anything from the simple understanding Dean had had of him, to the way he used to be able to know exactly what his brother or dad would say in any given situation, or the way he used to comfort himself by remembering the feel of Dean in the same bed as him, or Dad ruffling his hair. Those were things now lost to the mists of time.

Sammy stretched and got himself ready for bed. God knew when Todd would be back, but Sammy hoped he had the decency to come back quietly.

He climbed into bed and snuggled down, wrapping the blanket tight around him. He wondered briefly if he was going to dream and what it would be about. He hoped there'd be no nightmares because, embarrassingly, he'd been known to wake up screaming. Well, it wasn't his fault the job got to him occasionally. And that poltergeist _had_ thrown a severed hand at him which, while not very harmful, wasn't exactly pleasant.

But he hadn't woken up screaming in a long time, not since the dream he had where he was being attacked by a werewolf, completely out of his depth and quite literally with his back up against the wall. He yelled for help, in the hopes that anyone could hear him. Yeah right, he was in the middle of nowhere! But when the sharp teeth were just inches from his neck, there was the familiar sound of a gunshot.

The werewolf backed off and fell to the ground. Sammy spotted a gun lying behind it, still smoking. He picked it up and looked it, it was the one Dad had given him when he'd thought there was something in the closet. He looked everywhere for the person who'd shot the werewolf with it. He heard a familiar laugh and span quickly, only to catch a glimpse of a smirk before it faded away.

That dream had left him in a very good mood.

Maybe he wouldn't dream at all.

Sleep came quickly for Sammy. As his eyes were drifting closed, when his brain wasn't really awake and he forgot he wasn't back at home in his bed, the dark shadow of his shelves and the way his books were stacked on it looked like a man leaning against the wall. The the blanket wrapped around him, as well, if he thought about it, could almost be a person wrapped around him, protecting him from anything nasty that may decide to come his way. Sammy smiled. There were only two people he knew that fit the description.

His sleepy mind took that with him into his dreams where his brother, still all of thirteen years old came to visit him. Sammy heard all the news, how Dad had finally completed his mission of vengeance and had Mom returned to him. He heard that they were now living back in Lawrence and that Dean had been sent to retrieve their other son, if he didn't mind coming back.

Then Dean had asked him what he'd been up to, told him that he'd figured Sammy would have ended up in college some day, told him about all the hunts he'd missed. Told him about how much Dean had been looking forward to it being the four of them again, like it was meant to be. He mentioned that perhaps they could all go on a hunt together and wasn't that just a typical Winchester idea of family bonding?

Sammy agreed and said that perhaps they could meet up with Ed and Barbara and that he knew a girl called Natalie that he was sure Dean would like, not to mention his friend called Dean, which was a good, strong name, Dean insisted. Though they both agreed that Dean Winchester had a slightly better ring to it.

They'd laughed and joked. Sammy recounted some of his own hunts, watching Dean almost swell with pride. Dean expressed his surprise at Sammy even being able to take a fairy, considering how much of a girl he was and Sam hit him for that, but glowed upon hearing the underlying praise.

They could all be together again and it would be like before everything happened. He could be normal and he could be with his family, it was possible. This was what Dean was offering him and asking if he wanted to take it. He even had to ask? Sammy was so happy he could hardly breathe.

The next morning he thought perhaps waking up screaming would have been better.

TBC

Thank you for reading!


	6. The End

A/N: Last chapter! Enjoy it! Thank you for all your reviews and wonderful thoughts, you're all brilliant.

What If Dean Had Asthma?

Chapter Six: The End

Sammy fell back onto his bed. He breathed deeply as he felt the tension fall out of his muscles and smiled when he felt the gaze of his soon to be (once he bought the ring and got up the courage) fiancé fall on him.

"You need a new jacket," said Jess as she peered at him over the top of her book, "Those sleeves are about a foot too short," Sammy examined his arms, the sleeves were a little too short, it was true, but throwing the jacket out was out of the question.

"They are not a _foot_ too short,"

"They might as well be, you look ridiculous," Sam sat and grinned at Jess.

"I do not, and no matter what you say, I'm keeping the jacket," he slipped it off all the same, it wasn't exactly needed inside. Jess put her book down and walked over to Sam, a playful smile on her face. She picked up the jacket and Sam had to bite back his automatic response to someone else touching it. Most people had, by now, learnt that no matter how nice they were about his jacket, Sammy wouldn't let them try it on, which is exactly what Jess was doing now. She slipped it on and did a catwalk spin.

"How do I look?" To say that it was weird seeing someone else wearing it was an understatement, but despite that, it seemed to suit Jess. Sam was relieved, it was like she was meant to be part of the family.

"Honestly?" he asked,

"Honestly,"

"You kinda remind me of my dad,"

"What, Ed?" Jess was surprised, Ed didn't look like the type to go near leather clothing of any kind.

"No, my _dad_. It was his jacket. Just, one thing," Sam stood up and turned the collar up, which just completed the look.

"Does it have to be like that?"

"It's tradition!" Jess grinned and pulled Sam down for a kiss. Now that was more than a little weird. He could smell the faint scent of the jacket, the smell that had meant Dad and Dean to him for all of his twenty-two years of life and it was mingling with Jess. All of his most loved ones together, everyone he ever wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Jess pulled away and looked into his eyes.

"You never talk about your dad,"

"I was only nine, I can't remember that much," that, and talking about his dad usually required some knowledge of the things he hunted. No, he hadn't told Jess about that particular part of his life. It was awful, he knew, he was planning to marry this woman, he should be truthful with her about everything. He knew this, he'd told it to himself a thousand times and had almost so very nearly told her a hundred times. He'd resolved to tell her before they got engaged, which was another reason it was taking so long to get up the courage.

It was ridiculous. Poltergeist? Fine, he could take it, easy, but this one particular conversation had defeated him on numerous occasions. He always got as far as sitting down, looking like he had something big to say, then he'd open his mouth and out would come something about an assignment that he really didn't care about.

It scared him, the thought of that conversation. Well, it was more Jess' reaction to the conversation that had him worried. She may not believe him and could write him off as some kind of lunatic (which he was sure she wouldn't but, still) and then she'd leave him and he'd be alone. He didn't want to be alone, he wanted to be with Jess. This was the line of thought that ran through his head every time he tried to open up. It was a nuisance, sometimes he just thought too much.

"I know nothing about the man you spent the first nine years of your life with, can't you remember anything?" Sam sat back down on the bed and Jess sat next to him, her body close, warm and comforting.

"Well, obviously I... I do remember some things. Dean once pretended to be Dad for a whole day, it was really funny, had me in stitches," he smiled at the memory, "I uh... I guess you had to be there, though,"

"No, come on, tell me," Jess said gently. Sam looked at her, he wasn't in the habit of sharing his memories. It made people look at him with a sad little smile and entirely too much pity and that was annoying because the memory was usually happy and didn't require any pity.

"Well, we were really bored and we weren't allowed to leave the motel room so we had to make our own entertainment, especially as there was nothing on TV. So, Dean put on that jacket and started acting like Dad, doing the voice and everything, which was really funny because he couldn't get low enough. I spent the day being either a monster or a damsel in distress and Dean would either kill or save me. Dean always made sure it was done properly,"

"Done properly?"

"Yeah," he always made sure he used silver weapons and that he tested the person for possession before he exorcised them (Sammy, you've got to flinch when I say Christo!) and that he salted and burned the remains afterwards (don't want them coming back, do we?). He knew everything about how ghosts should be dealt with (you can't do that, your bones are already burnt!) and how monsters would act (you should chase me _away_ from your grave, otherwise I can get you easy). Then Sammy would thank him (Sammy, strangers wouldn't call him Dad, his name's John) and perhaps invite him home for dinner (no, sorry, I've got an amazingly awesome son and his little brother waiting for me to get back to them). "You know, according to whatever rules we made up at the time,"

"Dean sounds like a great brother,"

"He was the best," he glanced up at Jess and the jacket. He really should not need to comfort himself with an old jacket anymore, but he couldn't help it, he felt inexplicably nervous knowing that it wasn't in his hands or somewhere just as safe. He did trust Jess, really he did but... oh God, he was hopeless, "Can I have it back now?"

"What? The jacket?" Sammy nodded, "I don't know, I think it fits me quite well,"

"I haven't dragged it around for thirteen years only to give it away when it gets a bit small!" Jess obliged and handed it back to him.

"It means that much to you, huh?"

"Well, your whole family dies in one night, you kinda need something to hang on to," Jess tried her best to engulf him in a hug and did pretty well, considering what she was up against.

"I wish I could have met them," she whispered into his shoulder.

"Don't do that,"

"Do what?"

"Wish for things that can't ever happen, I'm an expert in it, it never works," it was a pity he couldn't take his own advice. Sometimes there was just that little voice in his head, one he couldn't shut up, that said _what if? What if Dad hadn't gone after those hellhounds? What if Dean didn't have asthma?_ It was a stupid thing to think, it probably wouldn't have even made a difference. How long was a thirteen-year-old really going to last in that business? It was probably a good thing they died when they did, get it over with early on so he could move on sooner.

Yeah, it didn't really convince him, either. But somehow, it was better than thinking how good everything would be if they were still with him.

Thankfully, Jess pulled him into a kiss and his brain, for once, just shut up.

* * *

Sammy flexed his fingers, working the blood back into them after carrying the groceries back from the store. He smiled at the cookies laid out on a plate for him, Jess had promised him some before he left that morning. He picked one up and took a bite out of it, he loved his life right now. 

He went into their bedroom and laid back on the bed, hands behind his head and just enjoyed the feeling. That he was loved, that he wasn't forced to be here, that he was here of his own free will, it was his choice and he loved it.

Drip. Oh, what now? If there was something leaking, he'd be so annoyed, he'd just got all the plumbing sorted out and everything.

Drip. He opened his eyes. Shit, no, not this, anything but this.

Jess was on the ceiling, oh God, it was just like his dreams. He had to wake up, had to, he couldn't watch more people die, he couldn't, he didn't have it in him. She was bleeding on him, slow drips from her stomach, filtered through the material of her dress. He couldn't wake up, it felt real, too real. What if it wasn't a dream? He could barely contemplate it.

"No!" barked Sammy, voicing his feelings over what he knew came next, "No!" he tried again but the flames still exploded out, engulfing Jess and the pain of it filled her face. Her mouth open, her brow creased with pain and confusion, the unwanted vision of Dean wearing the same expression flashed before his eyes.

He was not going to let it happen again, he was _not_. He jumped up onto the bed and reached for her. He just needed to reach her, to drag her from the ceiling. He was not going to let someone else die right in front of him. She was _not_ going to die. He couldn't imagine life if she did, he couldn't imagine going through the loss all over again. He wouldn't be able to cope, he knew that.

The skin on his hands and arms began to blister as he grabbed her shoulder, but it wouldn't budge. His eyes burned and he turned his face away from the flames. He felt for Jess' hand and he may have found it, but he couldn't tell because now there was only pain. If Jess was still alive, she was giving no sign of it.

The whole of Sammy was burning now, right down to his feet. His hands went numb, but he didn't have time to appreciate it because the bed he was standing on had caught fire. His arms fell into an instinctive position over his face and tried to smother his flaming hair. It may have succeeded, Sammy couldn't tell, his brain was too full of thoughts to get out. His instincts were now in charge, anywhere that didn't burn was good. Unfortunately, his legs were in no condition to help him out. He thought that he may have fallen off the bed, he may have landed with a thud and rolled away, but it all seemed a bit distant.

The roaring and crackling in his ears faded to the sound of his own breathing, slow and calm. He opened his eyes to a featureless room, bathed in a soft white light. Sammy looked at his hands, they were just fine. Hope flared in him that perhaps it had all really had been a dream, despite the very real and burning pain that was just fading from his skin. What he really needed was to work out where he was.

"Hey, Sammy," he looked up to the owner of the voice. Jess was here, it couldn't be a bad place, then. He took the hand Jess had offered and stood up. He took in her appearance, from her bare toes curling in the thick carpet, to her slightly messy hair and he hugged her for all he was worth.

"I thought I'd lost you," he said into the top of her head, eyes shut tight so he could concentrate on the smell and feel of Jess in his arms, Jess squeezed him back in reply.

"Christ, Sammy, you've grown!" Sammy's eyes snapped open and the sight the greeted him made his knees buckle and he almost dragged Jess back to the floor. Jess was frowning at his reaction, she looked over her shoulder and then back at Sammy, the faintest look of realisation crossing her features. Sammy couldn't move his mouth to articulate anything, just stared up into Jess' eyes, willing them to tell him that it was all true. "Hey, Sammy? What's the matter?" as if he didn't know.

Jess moved aside and Sammy could see them. Dad and Dean, exactly the same as they had been for the past thirteen years. Dean with his hands in his pockets and a knowing smile on his face, John with his hand on Dean's shoulder, smiling at him, an open, welcoming smile that Sammy wasn't sure he'd ever seen before.

He scrambled towards them, any grace he had was lost in his utter desperation to reach them. He just managed to not barrel into them and stopped, still on his knees, just in front of Dean. His thirteen-year-old brother skipped any words of greeting or teasing and just pulled him in and held him. He cried into Dean's chest, so full of emotion, it was hard to tell which one was causing him to cry. He balled his fists up tight in the back of Dean's shirt and held on, just in case anything was planning to rip Dean away from him again.

"Watch it there, you'll stretch my shirt!" but the hand on the back of his head absently stroking his hair told Sammy he was welcome to stretch as many of Dean's shirts as he wanted. He felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and he looked up at his dad. John was still smiling at him.

"Hey, Sammy-boy, it's all right," Sammy untangled one of his hands from Dean's shirt and clutched John's arm. The low, warm rumble of his dad's voice had soothed Sammy, it was like something that had been ripped out of Sammy had been given back to him at that moment. He'd been longing for this for so long.

"I've missed you _so much_," he managed to get control of himself long enough to say. His family – his family! It had been far too long since he'd last had one of those – tightened their grip on him. It was their way of comforting him. Where other people would gather you up and start whispering comforting nothings into your ear, his family tightened their hold, it was more comforting to him than any amount of whispered assurances.

With a pang, he remembered all the other people he'd left behind. Pastor Jim, Natalie, Ed and Barbara, all of his college friends who, he could only assume, had just lost two people in one go. He didn't like to think how they'd be feeling or what they were about to go through, he knew it all too well.

"Dad?" he looked up at his dad, "What about... everyone else?"

"Don't worry, whatever happens to them now, it's nothing to do with you," Sammy grinned, he couldn't help it. He felt sorry for everyone left behind, he really did, they were not going to be having a good time for the next few weeks at least, but he couldn't bring himself to feel sad for them. He'd spent too long being sad, too long wanting what he couldn't have. Now he had it and he couldn't stop grinning if he tried.

"John and Dean Winchester, I presume?" Sammy could hear the smile in Jess' voice. Dean and John let Sammy go so he could stand up.

"Dean, Dad, this is Jess," Dean let out a low whistle.

"Wow, who knew little Sammy would grow up to pull chicks like you?" Jess laughed.

"Straight out of the mouths of babes!" she said.

"Hey, watch it, I'm older than you are!" his finger was pointed accusingly at Jess, "I'll have you know I would have been a very dashing and handsome twenty-six-year-old by now!"

Sam thought about the ghosts he'd dealt with in his time, the ones who didn't want to leave or were too attached to something. They must be completely mad. Sammy didn't understand the need to stay with the living at all.

Dying was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

FIN

Thank you for reading!


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